Better Halves
by sinemoras09
Summary: Rin lives. AU. Obito/Rin. WAFF. Spoilers for the current arc.


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1.

She is stationed outside the place where Kushina is to give birth, when she hears it: a few scattered shouts, the sound of kunai, and when she reaches the clearing she sees the masked man hunched over, his hand gripping the sentry's throat.

By the time she reaches the medical tent, Kushina is already taken and Minato had already escaped, and there are dozens of bodies lying scattered on the ground.

"You're alive," the man says. The hood of his cloak falls back, and for the first time she sees his mask. "You're _alive_."

"Rin-chan!" Kushina says, and Minato is running. "Run!"

The kunai flies, then slips effortlessly through him. Kushina screams and the masked man wrenches away, disappearing and just barely dodging the blow.

Afterwards, she is there when the Kyuubi is resealed, watching with awe as Kushina twists and writhes and takes in the huge mass of chakra; she's there when Minato sags and hugs her close, and it's only after a few moments that Rin has enough sense to give them their private moment. She sits and waits outside the medical tent, turning over a kunai and mulling over the masked man's words:

"You're alive. You're _alive_."

She tilts her head upward and looks out into the darkness, which leers back at her like an open mouth.

xXx

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2.

The days after the attack, the citizens are all weary, hefting great blocks of concrete and detritus in wheelbarrows and slowly clearing out what's left of the village square.

Rin helps. She bends forward, hefting a huge piece of rock and setting it onto a wheelbarrow, then pauses to stop and wipe the sweat from her eyes. She had told the others about the masked man and the strangeness of his words, but no one seems to take notice. "He's a lunatic," Danzou had said, and the others in ANBU had nodded, silently. "It doesn't matter what he said." So Rin tries to push the events out of her mind.

It's dark when she finally gets back home. The door to her apartment sticks. She pushes it forward, the keys jingling slightly, managing to shoulder the door open and flipping on the light.

The room, when she enters, is empty. Rin drops her medical bag and takes off her shoes, then pads barefoot to the kitchen, where she pulls out cartons of leftover ramen and eats the noodles cold, standing in front of the fridge.

She showers. The hot spray of water works wonders on the achy knots of her muscles, and she tilts her face upward, relishing the warmth and letting the strangeness of the last few days wash away.

She towels and dries herself, pulling on an over-large shirt and walking barefoot to the bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. She steps inside and closes the door, and doesn't see the man standing in the corner behind her.

"Rin," the man says, and she freezes. The man steps forward.

"Do not be afraid," the man says, and he pushes his hood back. "I mean you no harm."

xXx

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3.

There are no weapons in the bedroom. Fighting back panic, Rin thinks of the things that can be used to defend herself: the medical textbooks; the dresser; the metal teeth of an old used comb.

"Who are you?" Rin says. She edges toward the doorway. "What do you want with me?"

"You don't remember me," the man says. "It is not surprising. You probably think that I am dead."

"Who are you?" Rin says again, and silently the man removes his mask.

Even in the dim moonlight, Rin can see it, the heavy scars marring the side of his face. The voice is deeper and the body is leaner, long ropes of muscle and calloused hands, but she still recognizes him.

"Obito," Rin says. A moment passes. She rushes toward him and takes him into her arms.

xXx

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4.

He hugs her for a long time. Tight, as if he isn't sure if she's real or if she's going to slip away again, and it's only until he's sniffing miserably against her shoulder that she releases what has happened. "Forgive me," Obito says, and the voice is low and sonorous and entirely at odds with what Rin remembers. "I did not expect to see you here."

"What happened?" Rin says, and he blinks slowly, as if trying to get his bearings. "Obito I don't understand-"

"It doesn't matter," Obito says, and Rin watches him, the long comma of his body hunched on the bed in front of her. "I wanted to see you for myself."

She sits gingerly beside him, watching him the way she would watch a wild animal, curious and fascinated but unsure how it would react. "I thought you died," Rin says. "None of us thought you survived."

She reaches up to touch the scars on his face, but Obito gently catches her around the wrist.

"Don't," Obito says, and he gently moves her hand.

They sit like that for what seems like years, Obito and Rin, until her mind lurches back toward the chaos in the village, the dead sentries on the ground.

"You tried to kill our sensei," Rin says, and she looks up at Obito again. "Why?"

"There is too much to tell," Obito says, and his Sharingan turns. "I can show you, if you'd let me."

Rin nods. Obito leans forward, closing his eyes.

The memories that come are hard. Her death; his anguish. His desperation and despair.

"I wanted to make a better world," Obito says. "A world with you still in it. But you're here and there's no point to any of this now."

He looks at her, and she can see everything on his face. Slowly, she lifts a hand again, then hesitantly, carefully, brushes the tips of her fingers down the scars on his face.

"What are you going to do?" Rin asks, finally. Obito shakes his head.

"I am a missing-nin. I cannot stay here," Obito says.

They are sitting close, and she's looking up at him, only a finger's breadth away. Her lips are parted and all she has to do is lean a little forward, to gently kiss him on the mouth.

But she doesn't. He isn't the Obito she remembers, and Obito rises, putting on his mask and breaking that strange moment between them.

"I am happy you're alive," Obito says, and his body swirls, distorts, a ripple in a pond bathed in moonlight. "Thank you again for seeing me."

"Obito," Rin says, but the swirl disappears, and the man in front of her window suddenly is gone.

xXx

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5.

The shop is in the middle of a small fishing village, bathed in bright sunlight as its citizens are chatting, idly. Men walk with silk knotted into fishing nets while washing women talk and chat by wooden piers, washing sheets of laundry and their hair tied up in clean white cloth.

Obito walks. Even in broad daylight, the people give him a wide berth, whispering amongst themselves. The village is a civilian one, and the villagers are visibly frightened by the sight of a strange shinobi, his face covered by the mask and his body obscured by the long traveling cloak.

In the shop, Obito fingers the small wooden charm, a small carved whale hanging from a delicate thread, and he knows this is just the thing to give Rin. "How much?" Obito asks, and the shopkeeper tries stoically not to jump and hide behind the nearest table, his hand shaking as he rings up the piece on the register.

When he gives it to Rin, she just laughs at him. "What is this?" Rin says. Obito frowns.

"It is a whale. It reminded me of you."

"I remind you of a whale?" Rin says, and Obito is about to protest when she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, still laughing a little as she leans against him. "Honestly this thing is hideous. What were you thinking, Obito?"

"I thought you would like it," Obito says, and she cuddles against him, tying on the charm and turning it in her hands.

The years that pass are quiet ones, and though Obito is still respected and feared, he finds himself regressing into the old, stuttering idiot whenever he is around Rin. It is just as well: she is the only one who's seen that side of him, and the man who had left the Akatsuki did so with his reputation intact. "I won't let you kill," Rin had said. It was the night she decided to leave with him. "Unless it's for self-defense, I won't let you kill."

She falls asleep beside him, cuddled up against the space between his neck and shoulder. She is a warm weight, comforting and safe, and he lets his arm rest across her shoulders, feeling the tidal rise and fall of her breathing. He has seen civilizations rise and countless wars, crossed the oceans and the lands and the emptiness in-between.

And everything, he knows, is as it should be.

end.


End file.
